Original subtitles

ONE MAN SHOW: French expression from the second half of the 20th century,

referring to the performance of a singer that holds the stage, alone,

during an entire evening. (See MONTAND)

YVES MONTAND: French singer of the second half of the 20th century,

who performed his one man show on 12 feb 1974 at the Olympia Music Hall,

in aid of Chilean refugees. (See CHILE)

CHILE: Latin American country in which, during the second half of

the twentieth century, an original experiment in socialist democracy

tragically crashed into military thugs.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Singer

Tuesday morning First rehersal

- So, where do we start, Bobby?

Let's put the Intro.

You know what I mean?

Yes, that's it, that'll put us -

in the mood.

Without the three opening knocks.

Like the scorpion, my brother

You are like the scorpion in a night of terror

Like the sparrow, my brother

Gérard Philipe gave me this poem.

He had several Nazim Hikmet poems,

but this one was the most powerful.

I never met Nazim.

I got a telegram while touring the USSR in '56-'57.

LENINGRAD 1956

I received it at Ilya Ehrenbourg.

The first time you perform a text, especially one like Hikmet's -

it's a very meaty piece, you see.

Besides, it tends to preach a bit to the audience

making me a bit "holier than thou".

So you must be careful!

So when you first try the lyrics

you wonder whether to whisper or speak it.

I found that this is more effective -

You are like the scorpion, my brother

People wonder what's going on.

And if there's so much misery in the world

It's thanks to you, my brother

If we are tortured, sucked dry

If we are flayed till we bleed

Squeezed like grapes for our wine

There, you see? Here's an example.

I mean, the gesture I've just made will always occur at the same point.

When I sing "Squeezed like graped for our wine!"

Well, it may be a second before or after but it always expresses

that, basically, we are all idiots who let ourselves be used,

be eaten up by the system, or systems,

so its kind of a rebellion.

You certainly must back it up with genuine emotion.

The gesture alone doesn't make the words any stronger.

That's the difference between "being" inside a song or a role

and being outside it.

But - that's where they make me laugh.

They think that you prepare a gesture - but they're wrong.

It's false and utterly stupid.

First, in my case, anyway,

when i work on a song, I never say:

"First I'll do this, then that!"

I first let the words and the music take over.

And if gradually I happen to make a gesture, instinctively,

I file it and leave it there.

You are terrifying, my brother

Like the mouth of an extinct volcano

And, alas, you are not one

You are not five

You are millions

I think of all my brothers

and i obviously think of myself.

Well, sometimes you think "Damn, I could have gone further"

And you think you stopped short, you didn't take it to the end.

Yet, as you advance in years, as they say,

you realise that things aren't as simple as you were lead to belive.

So you take time to think and while you think -

The thing is over and you stand there like a fool.

You haven't done what you should.

And if we end up where we are, that's our fault.

Right, the story of the boxing champion: Battling Joe!

Léo Férré, Louis Aragon: The Foreign Girl

There's a Gypsy camp nearby where kids sort out yours from mine

We often drive there in August, usually

They tell your fortune for pimentos or wine

We spend the night drinking

We dance to the clapping of hands

We hardly take it in when suddenly it's daylight and tomorrow's here

We drive back home, no sidetracking

High, broke and slightly sloshed

With cartloads of flowers and the future written in our palms

I took the hand of a dizzy mayfly

Who had followed me home

Her ultramarine eyes reflected her wildness

Her footstep was light

Those long fawn legs

I always loved foreign girls, even when I was a little boy

That one spoke very fast

About the magnolia's fragrance

Her dress dropped off as my haste loosened it

I was still naive in those days

A word was a promise

And I mistook bluebells for passion flowers

Hardly over and here I go again

Any music can seduce me

This most banal affair is eternal poetry to me

We played with our souls

One long day and one short night

And next morning: "Good evening, madam"

Love is over with the rain

A man leaves his house

Wait, where did we put the beret?

- Will you get it, please?

I want to try something with the beret.

Have you seen me in a beret?

Quite terrifying, you'll see.

It's like a French comic book.

A sad man, his face shows it

Suddenly, in an old dustbin

He seed an old telephone directory

When one is sad, one tries to pass the time

He picks it up, dusts it a bit

He skims thru the pages absent-mindedly

When one is sad

One tries to pass the time

As it happens

This sad man is sad

Because his name is -

Dick-head

He keeps skimming through the pages

And he stops at the D page -

And he scans the DI column

Di - Di - Di - Di -

And this sad man's face brightens and lights up

Nobody - indeed not anyone -

Nobody has such a name

"I am the only Dick-head"

He says through his teeth

And he throws the book, dusts his hands

And proudly walks on, going his happy little way

You will come to my house

I'm thinking of other matters

But i can think of one thing only

And when you will enter my house

You will take off all your clothes

And you will stand still

Naked

Standing there, and your red mouth -

Red as pimentos -

Hanging on white walls

And you'll lie down

And I'll lie down next to you

That's how it will be

You will come to my house

Which is not really my home

You will come

- For God's sake, Bobby, get on with it!

- If I go back I can't start again. I must start further on!

You're right, I guess.

He apologizes!

I love drifting down the Grands Boulevards

There are so many, so many things to see

Just take your pick at random

Blister your feet as you weave your way through the crowd

Leaving school -

Returning to Earth -

Returning to Earth we come across -

Slower here!

It's no good, you see?

Returning to Earth

Rolling along the railway we came across -

A house that was running, running all around the Earth and the sea

Running away from the winter who was chasing it

But we, on our railway, started rolling after them

Until we caught up with the winter and ran over it

And Spring came to greet us -

- No, that's wrong again, Bobby!

Don't look at me! Just play, forget about me.

If you sing with me, you mess it up, and me too!

Don't watch me, play at your ease

- There, you got it wrong again!

- You skipped a line.

- You think so?

- You want to check the lines?

- No, let's just do it again, calmly.

- It's you who played it wrong, Bobby! Definitely!

You had the wrong chord before! Now you played it right.

Sure, you had it right just now.

Just listen to me, don't play now!

Running away from the winter who was chasing it

But we, on our railway, started rolling after them

Until we caught up with the Winter and ran it over -

And the house stopped running and spring come to greet us

- You always skip "And the house stopped running"

- Well, it wasn't - oh, let's just do it once more, properly.

Now don't watch me and don't sing with me!

- You see? It is you who gets it wrong!

- Just after "the winter".

- You're sure? - Yes!

Anyway, the musicians will have their strict number of bars, so don't worry.

- Yes, but they also have to stay sharp. - Yes.

How about some food?

Tuesday Afternoon Bob Castella relaxes with J. S. Bach

I don't announce it. I just exit.

I give you a sign and i leave, you remember?

Incidentally, with Planting Coffee, it's a similar case

It's a very beautiful song, if you go for its exotic mood.

But if you look at the text, it's all right but it's weak.

Not really weak, but it can easily slide into, let's say

a kind of comic snigger about the lazy side of this primitive country

where people won't work without a kick in the butt.

It had this light, funny side in its time,

but in my present interpretation

I'll try to make it - not a dramatic, but a realistic character.

Well, yes, planting coffee really is a hard job

because you must bend down and not everyone can do that.

I'm going to try it, at least, but that's not all there is to it

There again you have that magic lantern element.

A man, crushed by the sun, totally still - a physical image on the stage

It's hell rehearsing Planting Coffee with the piano; it goes on for ever.

Give me the guitar bit.

Planting Coffee

That's not a job for the weak

You've just got to bend down

But that's the tough part

It gets hot in the summer

The sun weighs tons

You carry it on your back

And that's a lot for a single man

The big boss

Let him say what he likes

My sleep belongs to me

'THE WAR IS OVER'

Sanguine, you lovely fruit

The tip of your breast

Tenderly traced

The line of my fortune

In the palm of my hand

Sanguine, you lovely fruit

Midnight sun

I take her because it's the man's role to take the woman,

but only with her conset.

I mean, it's not a rape.

Well, being sympathetic to the women's liberation movement

I'm quite happy to beat my breast and listen to what they have to say.

But this is one area where i find it most difficult to "keep up".

What I object to is the tribal aspect: tribe against tribe.

I refuse to join in, categorically!

Equal rights - certainly.

It's hard enough, being an Italian, to justify myself

and reactions such as these

which could qualify me as a reactionay, i guess

but which i attribute more to my backward peasant mentality.

NEW YORK 1959

Deep down, i still go for that!

Let me tell you one thing

We, men, can scarcely measure up to women. It's difficult.

Because on a great many points -

and maybe I would have said on all points

if it weren't for my male chauvinist arrogance -

we don't measure up to them.

It's a song which resembles us

You loved me

And I loved you

We two lived together

You who loved me

And I who loved you

But life drives lovers apart

So gently

Without a sound

And the sea, smoothing the sand -

Erases the footsteps of separated lovers

It's coming through.

- Now the German song...

Friend, can you head the black flight of ravens over of our fields?

Friend, can you head the black flight of ravens over of our fields?

Friend, can you head the muffled cries of a country in chains?

Awake, partisans, workers, peasants, this is the alert!

Tonight the enemy will know the price of blood and tears

Rise up from the mines, come down from the hills, comrades!

From under the straw pull the guns, the bullets, the grenades

Awake, killers, whether by bullet or by knife, strike swiftly

Saboteur, go softly with your load - dynamite!

It is we who break the bars for our brothers in prison

With hatredon our trail, we are driven on by hunger and poverty

There are countries where people, tucked in bed, are dreaming

But here, you see, we walk, we kill,

we die

Here, we each know what we want, what to do when it's time to go

Friend, if you fall, a friend will step out of the shadows to take your place

Tomorrow, there will be blood on the roads, drying black in the sun

Sing, companions, in the darkness freedom can hear us

I was very scared when I sang the Partisan Song on that show.

It was for a specific occasion: the appaling events in Chile.

And people in the audience, whatever their views,

even those who just came to hear me sing,

couldn't condone what had happened in Chile

nor the way it had happened after three years of Allende's rule.

We know how it was, we were there and we saw it all.

People were really free to write or say whatever they wanted.

No one was arrested for political reasons, no one was executed.

People who opposed the government were left free.

Wednesday Screening of Chilean films

Victor Jara, our national singer.

He was at university with us

and they arrested him with us.

First, they cut his finger joints

while telling him to sing for the people.

Later, after endless tortures, they shot him.

Victor Jara

'STATE OF SIEGE'

Like the scorpion, my brother, you are like the scorpion

Friday First rehersal at the Olympia

The applause starts here, so you can mix with the applause -

I hope.

Cursed

Right, he takes the mike..

Perfect!

Hear that, José? You hear what the wire brush does here?

It's a bit faint, so I need a little amplification there.

But the drummer stays at the same level.

That's too loud now!

The sound man will do the amplification.

The drummer will play the same all along.

That's it, yes.

Sir Godfrey is a London man

Frequently seen in high circles

His perfect humour made the sun rise

Over the British Empire

He's a snob in more ways than one

He feeds his horse nothing but oysters

And flees with horror all budding yound ladies

This man, somewhat aloof

I take this mike here.

Always the same ideea.

He either leaves the mike or takes it

No, Bobby, keep going as you were.

Robert Desnos and Michel Legrand

In bed with her

Asleep, side by side

Dreaming parallel dreams

Double breathing

In bed with her

For that amazing single shadow

For the same warmth

For the same solitude

In bed with her

For a shared down

For an identical midnight

For the same ghosts

In bed with her

For an absolute love

For the vice, for the vice

For kisses of every kind

In bed with her

For the indescribable shipwreck

To prostitute one another

To merge with each other

To prove, truly prove to oneself

That lovers' souls and bodies have never bin burdened -

It would make more sense this way, wouldnt't it? Once again!

Are you with us, Paul?

No, that's awful.

Let's go to the top!

In bed with her

To prove, truly prove to oneself

That lovers' souls and bodies have never been burdened

By the lie of the Original Sin

Gentlemen, you messed about all day yesterday. That's enough now!

My dear little Bobby..

Saturday

Go with it. Just get into your beat and let it ride.

When you do that, you echo me.

There, can year the wire brush? Let me have a bit of that.

The song which tells the story of Tom, the great black man

King of all the shoeshine boys under the black skies of Harlem

Whatever shines in black Harlem -

It's Tom who made it shine, with his brushes and dusters

Come on, do it for him.

We don't rehearse until Monday?

On "He couldn't see" you go, leaving me with two spotlights.

Monday Lighting rehersal

There, not too fast, that's good; that was fast enough.

Battling Joe!

Battling Joe!

It's a forgotten name now

A sad crumpled figure

Leaning on a white stick

Battling Joe

He lost everything in one night

His eyes, his title and his hopes

But he can find comfort in the thought

That his manager has other champions

"Z"

We decided to make political films that some people objected to

not just to kae a political film but because it sprang out like that.

Now I feel that in order to push things

we must pass through a kind of steamroller

which crushes the best among us.

"THE CONFESSION"

And it takes a terrible toll.

But supposing we make mistakes, which is quite possible -

Let's be lucid about it.

The first true revolutionary act for each chitizen of this planet

is first of all, to learn, learn, learn!

"THE WAR IS OVER"

But for most young people it's not that at all.

It's the romantic bit, it's the "Onwards and Upwards"

It's the little machine gun on wheels

you pull down the Champs-Elysées, aiming at the presidential palace,

ready to blow it up!

That's how they see political change!

If you sense that I'm - not exactly reticent, but perplexed,

I'd simply say that in view of certain things,

which have taken place internally as well as externally,

I've gained a lucidity which scares me at times.

What if I fight for a bad cause since I do so in good faith?

And what if I act in bad faith since it's for a good cause?

Things lose their edge.

The fiercest fury, the deepest outrage get blunted at a certain point.

Because so many appalling things happen all over the world

you become immune, it's a sort of impotence.

You just can't... there's just too much of it.

I often quoted those words of Scott Fitzgerald:

"You should be aware that things are hopeless

yet still be determined to change them" - I quote from memory.

But that's the basis of existence.

Even if everything shut down tomorrow

and you realise that everything you'd belived for years

everything you tried to change

may seem to be utopian, unreal, shut off

you must keep striking these sparks here and there.

That's like the bees story.

The keeper may lock them up in a hive

but one day he'll have to put his hand in and then -

He'll get stung.

There's always a need for more men

Because the War -

Doesn't give a damn for lovers' oaths

It loves only the sound of drums

When the soldier goes to war

They call it glory

When a soldier comes back from war

They call him lucky

Tuesday Final rehersal before show

Cursed!

Cursed be the father

Cursed be the father of the wife of the blacksmith

That's still too slow!

It went so well this morning!

Stop it, Bob!

It's no use giving me the tempo now, if tonight you won't.

By Robert Desnos and Michel Legrand,

here is a fable,

a ferocious cautionary tale.

The Dove of the Oak

Cursed!

Cursed be the father

Cursed be the father of the wife of the blacksmith

Can you keep that beat?

I can't, it won't work.

I'd like to discuss it, do you mind?

I take the mike, and he comes in this way.

You've just done Clementine, and you go -

And if it's the wrong tempo, you've had it.

Not at all! I can still impose my own tempo later.

It's neither here nor there.

Wait, we've talked about this.

We've rehearsed this 24, no, 22 times.

No, 5 times precisely.

You're worried it'll mess it up, I can understand that.

It was perfect just then.

We've just done Clementine.

We've created a certain mood.

Now I'm breaking it to go into this.

Now, I'm neither Ella Fitzgerald nor Oscar Peterson

and I'm trying to create a slightly jazzy mood.

If I'm on the edge I won't be able to, because to do jazz you must be cool.

So once we've reached this point

If I'm in a state of grace, all's good and well

but if I'm not, I've had it!

By Robert Desnos, Michel Legrand

This a fable,

a ferocious cautionary tale.

The Dove of the Oak

Cursed

Cursed be the father

Cursed

Cursed be the father

Cursed be the father of the wife of the blacksmith

Of the blacksmith

The blacksmith who had forged

The blacksmith who forged the iron for the axe

With which

With which the woodcutter

With which the woodcutter chopped down the oak

Chopped down the oak which

Carved into the bed in which they conceived the great-grandfather

Of the man who drove the car

Cursed be the father of the wife of the blacksmith

who forged the axe which chopped the oak which made the bed

where they conceived the great-grandfather

of the man who drove

The car

In which

Your mother

Met

Your

Father!!

It's one, two, three, four, one! You start again here.

I must hear the 'one', so I know where to start.

No, my little bunny, no!

Do it properly! Don't say "Let him start, we'll catch up"

We can set up right now, so let's do it!

For Grands Boulevards, I don't care if you sing out the tune.

You're out of sight anyway.

So no need to feel silly, because no one can see you.

If I introduce this song, people say "Oh, that old one!"

But if it hits them unannounced, it will be a pleasant surprise.

So - no piano chords, no guitar chords, just go into it.

And try and end up together in the sandpit.

That's what I meant.

Just swallow one or two beats, as I usually do, that's all!

Luna Park

I was a real working-class kid when I began my stage career.

I came from an immigrant family and I was a steelworker.

So I totally Identified with the workers.

And nowadays - I think it's quite evident -

there's still a kind of identification

and a kind of solidarity -

I say "kind of" because I don't want to sound like a demagogue.

No, I may have said so yesterday but today you don't get in my way at all.

In the fields, the travelling players wander off, past the gardens

Past doors of bleak inns, through villages without a church

And the children run ahead

- Bernard, are you there?

- That's it - you saw that, didn't you?

You won't forget, will you?

Let's do the last bit.

Could you tie it?

That's better.

When we shall sing, the cherry blossom time

The cheerful nightingale, the mocking blackbird

All will be celebrating

Pretty girls will lose their heads

And lovers will feel the sun in their hearts

When we shall sing, the cherry blossom time

The mockingbird will sing with us

But it is short, the cherry blossom time

Where we go both, dreaming

and collecting earings

Cherries of love, that look all the same

Falling under the leaf, like drops of blood

But it is very short, the cherry blossom time

While we collect corals, dreaming

And when you will see, the cherry blossom time

And if you'll be afraid of heartaches

Avoid the beautiful ones

I, who am not afraid of terrible pains

I will not live without suffering each day

And when you will see, the cherry blossom time

You will also have heartaches

I will always love, the cherry blossom time

It's that time, that I keep in my heart

Like an open wound

And Lady Fortune, who has offered me so much

Will never know how to ease my pain

I will always love, the cherry blossom time

And the memory that I keep close to

Heart

I sing, I listen, I read, I travel, I dream and I see.

My job is to please the audience, to make them dream, laugh or cry.

I am not a philosopher, nor a politician; my life is like yours.

It feels the life of others, their deaths and the ones who kill them.

I lend life to imaginary beings, somewhere between heaven and earth,

on screen and on stage, but I live in the real world, with both feet on the ground.

The pains and injustices of this world hurt me as much as they hurt you.

A clown? Yes, may be, but not unconscious.

The news follows their course, as they say.

One makes us forget the other. Kippur, Chile..

A man gutted here, hundreds killed someplace else. And the waltz goes on.

But the Chilean refugees remain.

There are thousands among us, looking for a piece of bread and some warmth,

as there are thousands of prisoners, forced unemployment, men hunted.

You don't hear about them, but they are there.

I sing today to remind us of the blood of yesterday, and to keep us together,

so that this blood will not be replaced tomorrow, with our own.